


The Job

by Jae



Category: Panic At The Disco
Genre: Bandom - Freeform, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-07
Updated: 2007-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-06 11:17:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jae/pseuds/Jae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon has a job to do, and he tries really hard to do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Job

The thing that always killed Jon wasn't the way people felt so much about them, him. He wasn't bothered by that super-intense, shiny-eyed look and the way people always talked so fast when they were telling him how it was like the album was made just for them, only for them, and the way they'd keep talking faster and faster, tripping over their words and then laughing a little at how weird what they were saying came out, only it was always the kind of laughing where Jon could tell it hurt a little, too, like they'd be thinking all night about how they sounded like an asshole and they didn't, not really, they never sounded like assholes because Jon always remembered how it felt to feel like that. Hell, a lot of the time he still felt like that. He kind of hoped he never stopped.

So it wasn't like people taking it, them, so seriously, it wasn't like that freaked him out. It was the point, really, the reason to do it, the only one, and it wasn't like Jon would ever really say that too often, because talk about sounding like an asshole, and it wasn't like he was going to give the money back or anything, but there was the fun stuff that came along with the job and then there was the real reason.

There was this girl, once, in Philly, a meet and greet and he was joking around and Ryan was bored, slumped down in his seat and pushing his sunglasses up with his thumb and then letting them fall down, over and over, like every time he was surprised that there was still nothing worth seeing. And then there was this girl and she looked just like all the others, nothing really different about her. When Jon reached out to sign her CD she put her hand on the table, the side of her hand touching his wrist, not grabby like some people, not that he bothered getting all worked up over things like that because he understood how sometimes you just wanted to prove to yourself that it was real, that you were there.

But she wasn't grabbing, she just stopped him, for a minute, and she smiled and she said, "I just have to tell you," and Jon had heard that so many times now. Sometimes he thought he was like a one-man version of that website where people wrote in their secrets on a postcard. One day on the bus he and Spencer looked at it for hours, and it was so weird and great and terrifying, all the things people would say right out in public, some of them funny and some of them nice and a whole fucking lot of them really fucking sad, but even when Jon hit a whole run of the really sad postcards, like the ones where you kind of told yourself that people must be lying because otherwise you'd have to go to bed and pull the covers over your head for the next three days, somehow when he read enough of them in a row he just felt this kind of overwhelming warmth and understanding and what the hell, love, for every single secret-filled person in the whole fucking world.

"I just have to tell you," she said, and she had that half-breathless talking-too-fast thing they all got, and next to him Ryan lifted up his glasses with his thumb and shot a smile over at Jon, fast and private, because Ryan had heard that so many times now too. "This summer my mom died," she said, and the way she said the word it wasn't like it sounded different from any other word except that somehow it sounded like she'd repeated it, rehearsed it in front of mirrors the way Jon sometimes said to himself when he was all alone, locked in a bathroom far from the others, "This is my life, this is my band," like he was still trying to fucking convince himself. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ryan's glasses drop back down on his nose and his face crumple in on itself until it was like there was nothing but his smile holding him up.

"My sister, she's in college at Berkeley and I'm out here, and we both just listen to the CD all the time, and sometimes she'll just text me, out of the blue, or I'll call her, and we won't say anything, it's like we can't say anything except just a little piece of the lyric we're listening to, but it's like that's all we need to say and we know that we're feeling the same exact thing right then, and sometimes, sometimes that's all you need, you know, sometimes that's just everything, just to know that someone else is feeling the exact same thing --"

Zach was moving everybody along the way he always did, not rough exactly but unstoppable like the tide, and Jon pushed her CD at her and she clung to it with both hands and clasped it to her chest like it was all that was holding her up, and then she was moving along too and once Zach had them moving along there was never any going back. "Like a well-oiled machine," Spencer had said once, and Jon had laughed and agreed and never really thought about what the words meant, but the thing was they had to, they had to or else they'd be sitting there all day and all night. Next to him Ryan was half out of his seat and leaning over the table, his sunglasses pushed up on the top of his head.

"Hey," he said, in what Jon thought of as his backstage voice, not the smart flat one he used in interviews, in front of people, or the loud annoying one he used when it was just them in the back of a bus, but the one he used when he wanted to be heard, when he wasn't sure he would be. Jon hardly heard it much anymore.

"Hey," Ryan said, but the girl was already down at the other end of the table.

She waved, she fucking waved at them, and said, "It's all right," and that was what killed Jon, every time, about people, the way she said it like she was reassuring them, like it never occurred to her that they might hear stories like hers a million times a day, like it never occurred to her that they wouldn't hear her like she was brand new. He did, he tried so hard to with everyone, but what killed him every time was that it was like they never even had a doubt.

"Thank you," she said, and before he could say it back she was gone. She was gone and the next girl was standing in front of him and he looked right at her and smiled and tried to listen to what she was saying. He tried to do that every time, he tried so hard to.

Next to him Ryan slumped back in his seat. He took his sunglasses off and folded them up and put them on the table and then he looked at the girl in front of him.

"I kind of wish I knew her name," Jon said to Ryan later, backstage while they were waiting to go on. Ryan was sitting next to him, his leg touching Jon's and it wasn't like Jon would have noticed, usually, because they were all shoved together so much he was used to having one or the other or all three of them on top of him, but this time he noticed because Ryan's leg wasn't bouncing against his. Ryan was still.

"I mean, it's stupid, but --"

"You do," Ryan said. He didn't look over at Jon but kept staring down at a magazine in his lap. Back in the beginning Jon would sometimes look over at Ryan or Brendon when they were sitting around backstage and just crack himself up, the way they'd be just drinking a Red Bull or something all painted up like they'd run away to join the gay circus. These days Jon hardly even noticed unless Ryan had done something particularly tricky with the makeup. These days Ryan all painted up just looked like Ryan.

"No, I meant the girl from today who --"

"I know," Ryan snapped. There was a feathery blue line snaking its way around Ryan's eye and down the side of his face that trembled when he talked. "We signed something for her, she told us her name."

"Oh," Jon said. He was right. "Do you --"

"No," Ryan said.

"Oh," Jon said again. "It was probably Kate," he said after a minute. "I mean, it seems like they all are, doesn't it? I'm totally starting to understand why all these famous people name their kids like Apple and Radiator. After the nine trillionth Kate and Justin, anything else starts sounding good. I think I'm gonna name my kids Hephzibah and Gorgonzola."

Spencer laughed from the corner and Brendon said,

"Says the man named Jon."

"Well, not everybody can just naturally stand out in a crowd like me," Jon said. After a minute he said, "I think, seriously I think her name might have been Kate. Maybe I should put something up on the journal, you know, just like, hey, Kate from Philly --"

"You'll totally have, like, seven hundred and sixty-two girls emailing you within the hour," Brendon said. "At least. We should start taking bets."

"My money's on nine hundred and four. And three boys claiming their nickname's Kate," Spencer said, and Ryan stood up so hard the couch rocked back.

He stormed toward the door and then stopped, head down, breathing hard. For a second Jon thought Ryan was about to punch the wall. Out of pure curiosity he wondered what that would look like.

"It's too much," Ryan said. It wasn't his out in public voice or his just in private voice or his backstage voice. It wasn't like it sounded that different but there was something about the words that sounded used, like he'd said them a bunch of times before, locked away somewhere secret where nobody else could hear him. "It's too much, what they want, what I want, it's -- I can't. It's too much."

Jon didn't say anything. He never did, really, at times like this but usually it wasn't so noticeable because somebody else would say something. But this time nobody did. Ryan was looking down at the floor like he could see the words he'd said spilled out there, like he couldn't believe he'd let them out where everyone could see.

In the corner Spencer was sitting braced against the wall. He didn't say anything but just nodded his head, looking at Ryan the way he did sometimes like he understood everything Ryan was thinking. "You got like that psychic friends connection," Jon had told him once, and Spencer just laughed.

"The day I know everything going on in Ryan Ross's head'll be a really fucking scary day," Spencer had said. "Seriously. Hell, the day Ryan Ross knows everything going on in his head -- run for cover, man."

"No, but -- you always talk him down."

"I don't do much talking," Spencer said. "I just let him know I'm along for the ride." He'd smiled like he was remembering something from a long time ago, something that maybe started out sour but got sweeter just because it was a memory and it wasn't only his. "Wherever we're going."

Spencer wasn't doing much talking now, either. He just sat looking up at Ryan and nodding, like he knew there was a day coming when this would seem a little sweeter too.

Ryan spun away from the wall. "Can't you fucking hear me? I said I can't -- I'm not, anymore, it's too much. It's too much, I can't, I won't --"

"Shut up," Brendon said sharply, and Ryan shut his mouth hard enough that Jon could hear the click, then lifted his chin and took a step toward Brendon. Brendon met him, and for a second Jon thought Ryan might punch him. Something inside him that wasn't really curious and wasn't pure at all wondered what that would look like.

Before Ryan could open his mouth again Brendon reached out and took his jaw in his hand. Jon had seen him do it a million times before, and onstage Ryan would probably laugh and lean back and not onstage he'd probably laugh and lean in but now Ryan just froze, suspended, like the only thing holding him up was Brendon's hand.

"It's not too much," Brendon said. His hand slipped and then tightened. Jon could see tiny blue trails along Ryan's jaw, drifting away from Brendon's fingers where they'd smeared Ryan's makeup. "If you do your job right, it's just fucking enough."

He didn't say anything, and Ryan didn't either, just stood there breathing hard against Brendon's hand. Spencer didn't say anything either, but he stood up and he was right there next to them. Jon stood up then, too, and Spencer glanced over at him and smiled and nodded.

"Okay," Brendon said, and it wasn't a question but Ryan nodded. Brendon took his hand away and for a second Ryan's face was tilted up, lifted like Brendon's hand was still there, but then he smiled and swallowed hard and there wasn't anything holding him up at all.

"Okay," Brendon said. He rubbed his hands together and Jon could see faint blue traces on his fingertips. "We've got a job to do," he said, and he let Ryan lead them out onto the stage.


End file.
